Active choice is a simpler process than often assumed. Choice means picking an option in the situation of a plurality of options. Motivatedness, preference, strategy of decision – all these are not necessary for making a choice, while they all assume the existence of choosing. The simplicity of optionality implies that the existence of choice is feasible in many species of organisms. Since semiosis as interpretation assumes choice, we get here a more fundamental criterion for the limits of semiosis than life. More fundamental, because choice assumes the simultaneity of options, i.e. the nowness, which turns it into a non-algorithmic process. Thus we define sign process (meaning-making) through the concept of choice: semiosis is the process of making choices between the simultaneously provided options. I.e., semiosis is a decision-making in an ambiguous situation. We see this as a complementary (and still compatible) description of the Peircean triadic model of semiosis. It may occur that if free choice is understood as the fundamental feature of sign processes, then it allows for the unification of the major semiotic models. As regards the Saussurean model, choice is the basis of arbitrariness. For the Greimasian model, choice is described by the axes of contrariness and contradiction, which represent options. According to Juri Lotman’s model, the relationship of untranslatability is the situation of choice. In view of the Uexküllian model, choice is the decision of an action in umwelt. According to the Peircean model, interpretation includes choice via abduction. An integrated semiotic theory is feasible.